Primetime serial This Is Us knocked it out of the ratings park this week–and we have some ideas about why!
A Key Demographic
This Is Us (TIU) was this week’s number one show in L+7 broadcast ratings, according to deadline.com. L+7 is industry lingo that denotes live viewing plus seven days later via DVR among the much-ballyhooed 18-49-year-old demographic. TIU beat comedy powerhouse The Big Bang Theory, which is no small feat.
TIU has been a critical and ratings successes since it’s debut last fall. That alone is to be admired by critics and viewers alike is impressive.
A Delicious Moment for All of Us Soap Fans
Well, well, well! So, soaps are dead and no one watches them anymore, eh, daytime detractors? We hate to say we told you it wasn’t so, but we did. And actually, we love to say it!
It’s not just that TIU is a soap, plain and simple, featuring character driven, serially-told stories. It’s that Justin Hartley (ex-Adam Newman, The Young and the Restless) is a principal player on the show. We at Soap Cities are sure that his many fans from the CBS daytime sudser followed him to TIU and are helping make that show the ratings hit it is today.
Hopefully, TPTB at the networks, particularly ABC, are paying attention. The Alphabet Network now has the power to bring back to our screens All My Children and One Life to Live by way of a host of content delivery methods and in a variety of formats. Not only that, CBS and NBC might do well to take heed too. They could bring back some of the soaps they canceled in hasty and wrongheaded decisions.
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